XVI
Little by little my brain had regained its lucidity and my heart its normal beat. Now, outstretched on the bed, with my boots and clothes on, and my hand upon my pistol, I was waiting, waiting. I noted the fact: the hand upon my pistol had not a tremor: it was ready to kill. My Adventure was approaching its dénouement. I would soon have to fight a battle, where I must needs come off victorious. These considerations were like a potent cordial to my overstrained nerves. So cool and collected indeed had I become that I was now prepared to take everything as a matter of course. I could, that is, restrain my astonishment, or at least postpone any expression of it. Madeleine, in that mysterious house, at that time of night! No, there was no explaining it, with any explanation at all convincing. But, for the moment, no explanation was necessary, or in point. We would come to that later—after the combat—which must end in my victory. Meantime, all conjecture would be superfluous.
The three candles were still burning on their tripod of the three crossed lances. But they were getting short. I took out my watch and looked at it. Half past two! The candles would almost certainly fail to outlast the night. And to shoot accurately you must see, clearly see, your target! I rose from the bed, walked over to the candlestick and put out two of the three wicks burning. Then I went back to my bed again.
But I had my boots on. My spurs had scraped noisily on the tiling of the floor; and, since the latter had no carpet, my heels had clacked loudly as I walked. And that was not the worst of it. As my weight came down upon the edge of the bed, the spring gave a long, piercing, metallic squeak, which, in case anyone at all were guarding me, had a fine chance of being heard, in that sepulchral silence reigning, two or three partitions away. This reflection had had just time to settle clearly in my mind, when, and almost as an echo to the creaking of the spring, the lock in the door of my room creaked in turn.
With a bound I was off the bed; and I had to restrain myself in order not to level my automatic upon the door and let fly the moment it opened.
I managed to control that impulse. Besides there came a knock, a discreet, a courteous knock, on the panel. The door swung open slowly, and in the doorway I saw one of my hosts, I could not decide whether the father or the son, but at any rate one of the two old men with the long, broad, glistening, snow-white beards. He was standing there quite motionless, not presuming to come in. His eyes, in truth, had swept me with a glance from head to foot; and there I was, with my clothes and my boots on, in the unmistakable posture of a man who had not been in bed at all, who had resisted slumber, and kept on watch, nervous, suspicious, mistrustful, ready for any emergency that might arise. I caught a rapid flash in those scrutinizing eyes, a lightning-like flare that vanished on the instant. And again a thought that I had had before flitted across my straining consciousness: those penetrating eyes—did they not have, perchance, the power of going deeper than my forehead, piercing through to the secret thoughts harbored naked in my brain?
And then the old man spoke:
“Monsieur has not been sleeping. Truly, we suspected as much. In view of that, why should monsieur pass such a dull time alone here in this chamber? Would monsieur not like to join us in the room below? I think that would be far better—for monsieur, as well as for us.”
I had regained my composure once more; and I answered with decision:
“I will accept your invitation, Sir!”
And I advanced upon him.
But he drew back, as though to let me pass in front of him. This I refused to do. He may have guessed what was in my mind, for he did not insist. He led the way in front of me, with the words:
“As you will, Monsieur, ... just to show you the way!...”
On reaching the reception hall, I stopped in front of the door where I had caught the breath of Madeleine’s perfume. But it was not toward it—not as yet toward it—that I was guided.
In fact, the old man went straight across the anteroom, and, seeing me motionless in front of the same door, politely called:
“This way, if Monsieur will be so kind!”
Another door, concealed as all the others in the paneling, now opened, not, however, into a corridor, but directly into a large, in fact, a very very large room, which was thus cut off from the reception hall by the thickness of one partition.
My eyes winced before the glare of some fifty or sixty candles distributed about the room in holders along the walls and of two massive lamps, one to either side of the fire-place. The latter was a majestic hearth in ancient style with a huge embossed and sculptured hood spacious enough, I thought, to accommodate a goodly number of whole oxen.
Seated in an armchair and facing me as I came in was the old father—so at least I decided; but next to him, now, was a third aged man whom I had not seen as yet, and whom I took for a much younger person than the other two, though he also was far from young. They both bowed in greeting as I entered.
I stopped near enough to the door to prevent its being closed. The man to whom I had not been introduced motioned toward an empty chair. I declined it with a shake of my head; whereupon he rose:
“As you will,” said he, “I understand your feeling!”
His voice was in a very queer falsetto.
I saw him push his chair back and come forward a step in my direction. His two aged companions took up positions to the right and left of him, as though he were their chief. Chief indeed he proved to be.
There was a moment’s silence: then this man resumed:
“Monsieur le capitaine, I must offer you my apologies. It may seem inconsiderate of me to have disturbed you in your slumbers. But it may be you were not having a very quiet repose. In that case I may count on your forgiveness!...”
He broke off, and pointed with a gesture first to the one and then to the other of his two companions.
“And pray forgive them, too,” he added. “They are well-meaning boys, on the whole, though their manners leave something to be desired. In this they are entitled to be excused, perhaps, in view of the place and the times we are living in and our aloofness from most men of the world. Certainly it would be difficult to explain away all their breaches of good form to a stickler on the niceties of conduct or to some one of over-delicate susceptibilities. But such, fortunately, you prove not to be, and I must congratulate you on your forbearance. Nevertheless, I cannot overlook the first and grossest of the impertinences inflicted on you. When you were so kind as to volunteer your name, this young man here neglected to give his name to you. I have reproved him severely for this oversight, and I solicit your indulgence in his behalf. He is the Vicomte Antoine, at your service, Sir; and here is Count François, his father, if you please. And I—you will pardon me—am the Marquis Gaspard, father of Count François and grandfather to Vicomte Antoine. There you have us all; and now, I trust, you will not impose upon me the hardship of remaining longer standing. Let us be comfortable! Will you not please take a chair!”
The door behind me was wide open still, as I satisfied myself with a glance in that direction. Moreover, the strange address I had been listening to had a curiously persuasive quality. I sat down as had been suggested, and the three of them did likewise.
“Dear me, dear me,” said the Marquis Gaspard as he eased himself in his cushions. “You have left the door wide open, and a terrible draught is coming into the room!”
Hastily the Vicomte Antoine arose; but he was not so quick as I. I was at the door in a second and closed it with my own hands, making sure, meanwhile, that a simple latch was all that fastened it.
“Thanks, a thousand thanks!” exclaimed the marquis. “But, Monsieur le capitaine, why go to such extremes of courtesy? My grandson could have closed it just as well!”
I was already in my seat again, and the vicomte in his. There was a period of silence, in which my eyes had time to flit about the room. A couple of logs were glowing in the ancient fire-place. The candles about the walls were gleaming brightly. The beams in the ceiling were darkened from the smoke of the open fire during many years. The easy chairs I found quite beautiful in their upholstery of old brocade.
And there were my three hosts!
An uncontrollable astonishment now came over me, something far in excess of any of the surprises I had experienced heretofore. Those two more than centenarians in their long snow-white beards were respectively son and grandson of the third, who seemed to be, by far, the youngest of the three! His face, smooth shaven, had not the trace of a wrinkle. There was no suggestion of sunkenness about his eyes; just as his falsetto voice came from high in his throat without a tremor and without hesitation. And yet—such the situation seemed to be! He was indeed the ancestor par excellence, the veritable patriarch, and of an age that beggared the full many years of the fathers of Abraham!
But of what could I be really sure?
The silence continued unbroken. Now we were in our chairs, the three of them facing me. They looked for all the world like a tribunal, with the marquis figuring as chief justice, and his son and grandson as associates. And I, what was I in that picture? Suspect? Defendant? A culprit awaiting sentence?
The silence lasted an unutterably long time. The three pairs of eyes fixed upon me eventually got on my nerves. To conceal my annoyance and self consciousness, I turned my head and again examined the vast hall. It was a sort of living-room—low-studded—and not a parlor, nor a lounge. The woodwork on the chairs was gilded, and the upholstery, as I had before observed, was of old brocade. The plastering was painted simply, without hangings, mirrors, or pictures, of any kind. Meagre, also, the furnishings: in addition to our four arm-chairs, two divans in the same style (an impeccable Louis XV), and two seats of fantastic form—dormeuses, one might have called them—with complicated rests for arms and feet and head, and so deep that they might have smothered rather than accommodated the human form. I further noticed an old-fashioned clock and a chest, on opposite sides of the room, and then a kind of horse, or easel, such as painters use to incline their canvases according to the fall of light.
I was studying this latter object, when the Marquis Gaspard coughed, and then sneezed noisily. My eyes came back to him. He was holding a snuff box in his hand and had just taken a pinch from it. He returned the object to his pocket, and then began, evidently by way of introduction:
“Monsieur le capitaine, I am eager, before all else, to convince you of our good will in your regard, a good will that is absolute and which will prove, I trust, efficient. Changing times have done us wrong, to tell the truth; for to look at us, I suppose, one would take us rather for brigands of the wild than for amiable, well-intentioned gentlemen. And yet, we are not so bad as we seem, a fact of which you will, in the end, become aware.”
The old man fell silent, took out his snuff-box again, treated himself to another pinch, and then sat thinking for a moment.
“Monsieur,” he resumed at last, “I should dislike being put into the position of matching wits with you. I prefer to rely on your honesty and honor as a soldier of France. I put the question quite bluntly therefore: Was it, or was it not, by pure chance, that you came, last evening, so very very close to this residence of ours?”
I did not have time to answer. He silenced me with a gesture and went on:
“Of course, I take a number of things for granted. You did not venture into this retreat for the purpose merely of paying us a visit! Far from that, monsieur! My vanity would not be crossed if I did not hear such an extravagant avowal on your part. I am quite ready to admit that before this evening our triple existence played a slight if any part at all in your normal thoughts and preoccupations. I am right on that point, am I not? Quite so! So much for that!
“Nevertheless, it is not inconceivable that your present trespass on our domains may be due to something more, a little something more, than plain simple chance.... May I expatiate: monsieur le vicomte, my grandson, found you some hours ago in an extraordinary place, to say the least. You were on your way from the Mort de Gauthier to the Grand Cap? Be it so! Heaven preserve me from doubting your assertion in the slightest. And yet, and yet! The fact is that to reach the point where the vicomte found you, you must have proceeded with your back persistently and repeatedly turned upon your goal. The brush and undergrowth on the mountains, I suppose, are by no means an easy problem for the wayfarer. To find one’s way about therein requires no little presence of mind. Permit me, nevertheless, to express my great surprise that a gentleman of such talent as I perceive in you, a gentleman trained in cartography as the members of your distinguished profession are, should have gone so far, so very very far, astray, and over such rough and trying ground! My honor, Monsieur! Must one assume that some will-o’-the-wisp, running the heath to lure poor travellers to destruction, may have caught you in its spell! I suggest that hypothesis—one I am by no means loathe to accept. So I ask you, Monsieur le capitaine: Was it such a wandering fay—an evil fairy of the deadliest lineage—that brought you to our refuge?”
He concluded, and fastened his eyes upon me.
From the first syllable in his quaintly formal discourse, I had foreseen the point at which he was ultimately to arrive. So I was not by any means taken unawares. His address, besides, had been a long one, and I had had plenty of time to make a supreme decision. When he came to his will-o’-the-wisp, my mind was quite made up. Gently my hand had made its way to my pocket and come to rest on my revolver. I had withdrawn my left leg from beneath my chair and stiffened the muscles of the calf. Ready to spring forward and mix in, I now looked up and answered without a tremor:
“Monsieur, will you not take your own choice? You have suggested chance, foxfire, fairies. Have it as you will. I have no reply to make. On the contrary I have a number of questions to put to you!”
He did not bat an eyelash, nor did the men to the left and right of him; but eventually a smile came to his lips and refused to fade as time went on. I got a good grip on my automatic.
“I have no intention,” I resumed, “of matching wits with you either! I expect immediate frankness on your part; for you will find it to your interest, I assure you, not to prevaricate by a syllable. Shall we then come to the point without evasion? I ask you, monsieur: are you by any chance acquainted with a young lady, Madame Madeleine de X....”
I gave her name in full, of course.
The Marquis Gaspard, still smiling and more blandly if anything, nodded and waved his hand in emphasis of assent.
“Very well,” said I. “I will go on. Monsieur, is it, or is it not, a fact, that this lady is a prisoner, at this moment, in this house?”
The hoary head was now slowly raised, while the same wide opened hand sketched a gesture of perplexity. The smile puckered into something expressive of incertitude.
“A prisoner?” said he. “That is hardly the word, Monsieur. It is a fact that the lady in question is, and at this moment as you say, honoring us with her distinguished presence in this house. But if, as I can now hardly doubt, you chanced to meet her on your way, you must have been able to see for yourself, Monsieur, that she was coming alone and of her own accord, without constraint from anyone, to visit us under this roof where you wrongfully choose to call her a prisoner—as she is not, Monsieur, my word of honor!”
Whereupon, he settled back into his chair, and his ghoulish, ironical, joyous face stood out more clearly against the bright brocade of the cushions.
He had outmanoeuvred me in the exchange, and for a second or two I was disconcerted. Then, however, I regained the offensive.
“As you will have it, Sir,” I said. “I was wrong, in my choice of words: I confess my error. Madame de X.... is a free woman here; and, accordingly, there is no reason in the world why I should not be admitted to her presence at once, to offer her my respectful homage. May I see her? I am one of her friends, the most intimate of her friends, I might say.”
The smiling, clean-shaven mouth relaxed into a broad laugh accentuated with little explosions of mirth in that queer falsetto:
“Oh, Monsieur le capitaine, you are telling us nothing we do not know, believe me, Sir. And rather, pray excuse the generous liberty I am taking in laughing at an affair such as yours and hers. I date from very long ago; and in my day, we were not so particular about secrecy in such matters. Let us pass on, pass on. I see that I have hurt your feelings by my inopportune mirth. No offense, I assure you. Let us forget that whole side of the subject. You ask to interview Madame de X.... Nothing, in fact, would be easier; but unfortunately, Madame de X.... was feeling very tired, and went to bed, not long ago. She must now be in her first sleep; and I know you are far too much of a gentleman to disturb a lady under such conditions—to mention only the first of many obstacles to your satisfaction.”
He was making fun of me; and my face burned hot with anger.
“I insist,” said I, mastering my indignation. “I promise further not to disturb Madame de X.... if her first sleep is as deep and peaceful as you assert. But I insist on seeing her—and I have a right to, I should say, a right which I am certain you will not dispute.”
At last the smile faded from the Marquis Gaspard’s face. His eyes settled upon me searchingly, as he replied in an earnest voice:
“Monsieur le capitaine, you are, rest quite assured, in a position to ask everything in this house, without finding anything denied you. Will you follow me!”
He arose, walked to the door, opened it, and stepped across the reception hall. I followed in his footsteps in nervous astonishment. The other two men also rose and came along behind me.
“Monsieur,” said the marquis softly, “you are now able to understand, I trust, why you were several times requested to make no noise in your apartment, which is so close to this one....”
I had guessed rightly, from the first. It was the room behind the door with the three long thick bolts, from under which the perfume so familiar to my nostrils had come—the fragrance of muguet, of lilies-of-the-valley. And it was just such a room as I had imagined later—a naked, sparsely furnished chamber like the one they had given to me; and the same bed with fine sheets and silken coverlets.
On that bed Madeleine was lying, her eyes closed, her lips white, her cheeks a leaden gray. They had told me the truth, also. She was asleep, deeply, too deeply, sunk in slumber, a strange, bloodless, icy slumber, nearer to death, perhaps, than to life.
“Monsieur will be mindful strictly of his promise,” cautioned the Marquis Gaspard. “You have satisfied yourself that Madame is sleeping, soundly sleeping. I may add that she is so greatly fatigued that the shock of a sudden awakening might be fatal to her....”
The words were uttered in a grave, solemn voice in striking contrast with the bantering tone he had hitherto adopted.
From the very depths of my being a cold, relentless anger rose, as a hurricane of winter rises on an unsheltered plain. Drawing my pistol, I turned sharply upon the man, my enemy, and, my finger upon the unlocked trigger, I pressed the muzzle against his heart: “Peace!” I commanded, “Not a word from any one of you, or I shoot this fellow like a dog! Now, you speak up, you, Sir, you! And the truth, as you value your life! This woman! What are you doing with her here?”
I had my eyes fixed upon those of the old man under my pistol.
And these began to glow, to glow, to glow! What was happening to me? For a second I was blinded, dazzled, dazed. Then a sudden panic seized on me. I felt my prey slipping from my clutches. With my last ounce of will-power I pressed upon the trigger; but the weapon did not go off. The eyes of my prisoner had fallen slowly, quietly, deliberately from my eyes upon my hand. A vise-like grip fell upon my fingers, paralyzing, bruising, crushing them. The automatic slipped from my grasp and fell to the floor....
Then, in the same deep, solemn voice, coolly, calmly, as though nothing whatever had occurred, the Marquis Gaspard answered my question:
“What am I doing with this woman here? No query could be more natural, more legitimate, I am sure, Monsieur. I shall consider it a privilege to satisfy your curiosity. But perhaps Monsieur would prefer to return whence we came, to avoid any disturbance of Madame, in her slumbers.”
My two arms were hanging loose at my sides. And my two legs were free. Nevertheless I felt bound hand and foot, unable to make the slightest movement save such as my master, the Marquis Gaspard, commanded.... A prisoner, body and soul, I obeyed in silence. I walked back toward the room we had left a few moments before. As I stepped through the door of Madeleine’s chamber, I experienced a bitter longing to give her one more glance, one more, one more.
But it was not vouchsafed me to turn my head.